Rotorua clean-up continues after second weekend storm

ROTORUA 01.02.11: For the second week in a row Rotorua District Council (RDC) work crews are cleaning up after another major storm drenched the district over the weekend.

With 160mm of rainfall on Friday night and Saturday morning the weekend's weather bomb proved more intense than the storm that hit Rotorua the previous week, but it was of a shorter duration.

Castlecorp business manager Mijo Katavic said the council had received 59 calls from residents on Saturday alone, mostly relating to sewer overflows, water breaks and storm water problems.

“Our crews were kept very busy attending callouts and today we’re revisiting a number of sites where there have been major wash-outs. We expect this work will keep some of our teams busy for a few days yet.”

RDC Works manager Peter Dine said all local roads were now open but clean-up work and road repairs could take another two weeks to complete.
“On Saturday and Sunday our road crews responded to six tree falls, 21 slips and 27 flooding incidents.

"There has been some significant damage on Lichenstein and Hamurana roads, in addition to three major underslips that occurred the previous weekend on Waikite Valley, Poutakataka and Mountain roads."

The most serious slips were in Hamurana Road where there were six slips and vehicles trapped between falls, and in Spencer, Waikite Valley, Trout Pool and Parsons roads. The most serious road flooding was around Ford, Sunset, Tarewa, Lake and Western roads, and Elizabeth Street, all of which were closed to traffic for periods of time.

Mr Dine said Lakes Rotorua and Okareka were still above maximum levels but everything else appeared to be operational.

The storm brought flash flooding to the city and rural roads in the early hours of Saturday morning, inundated a number of suburban properties, and brought down trees and branches throughout the district.

Streets were closed by surface flooding until water subsided sufficiently for traffic to pass, and slips caused some state highways to be reduced to one lane or temporarily closed with diversions in place until mudslides could be cleared.

The heavy rain brought river and lakes to high levels and resulted in overflows at the city wastewater treatment plant and some sewer pump stations. Saturday’s precautionary health warning advising people not to swim or take fish around urban streams and where they discharge into Lake Rotorua, had now been lifted said council utilities operations manager Eric Cawte.

"Flows into the city wastewater treatment plant remain high today (Tuesday) due to groundwater infiltration but are manageable. Staff and contractors were mobilised on Saturday and Sunday cleaning up overflows and this work has now been largely completed.

“In spite of many sewer pump stations being overwhelmed by rainwater flows, we’re very pleased that all 73 pump stations and the main wastewater treatment plant remained fully operational and functioning at full capacity through both storm events, apart from two electrical faults repaired at the time."

RDC’s emergency management coordinator Pauline Hitchcock said that the council’s response team had assisted police at the peak of the storm to check residents were safe in Rotorua properties but no evacuations had been necessary.

“Our response team also travelled to Whakatane on Saturday afternoon to assist with sandbagging around a number of storm affected homes there. They spent six solid hours filling and placing sandbags before returning to Rotorua on Sunday morning.

“Given the intensity of the storm and the amount of rainfall in such a short time Rotorua appears to have come through very well again, especially when compared to major problems experienced in other parts of the region and throughout the country,” said Ms Hitchcock.

ENDS

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